The advent of more resistant diseases as well as the AIDS virus has resulted in health-care industry workers being perceived to be at an increasing risk of infections, particularly bloodborne infections, from which protection is needed. Such workers traditionally have worn disposable fabric clothing of various types depending on the exact nature of the work they were performing. Some such clothing has been made from laminates of nonwoven fabrics such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,885 to Timmons et al. which use a spunbond-meltblown-spunbond or "SMS" construction. SMS fabric laminates have outside spunbonded layers which are durable, and an interior meltblown layer which is porous yet which inhibits the penetration of fluids and bacteria through the laminate. Another SMS laminate is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/223,210 to Bradley et al. now U.S. Pat. No. 5,481,765 and discloses a laminate with improved repellency having a meltblown layer sandwiched between spunbond layers wherein the meltblown and spunbond layers may have between 0.1 to 2.0 weight percent of a fluorocarbon to improve repellency and the meltblown layer preferably has between 5 and 20 weight percent polybutylene. Such laminates are good barriers to penetration, yet improvement is needed and possible in response to more and more exacting regulation and the ever increasing concern about infection.
Another fabric produced in response to this increasing concern has been a fabric which incorporates a film as a layer of a laminate. Such films are certainly more impervious to liquid than a traditional SMS type fabric but have an important drawback. The drawback of film laminates is that they are generally uncomfortable to wear because their very imperviousness can trap perspiration against the wearer and make the wearer feel quite hot and clammy after a short time under typical conditions.
There remains a need for a laminate which will allow perspiration to pass through it quickly and easily but which will be even more repellent than the nonwoven fabrics currently available.